Radical interpretation is interpretation of a speaker, including attributing beliefs and desires to them and meanings to their words, from scratch—that is, without relying on translators, dictionaries, or specific prior knowledge of their mental states. The term was introduced by American philosopher
Donald Davidson (1973) and is meant to suggest important similarity to
W. V. O. Quine W. may refer to:
* SoHo (Australian TV channel) (previously W.), an Australian pay television channel
* ''W.'' (film), a 2008 American biographical drama film based on the life of George W. Bush
* "W.", the fifth track from Codeine's 1992 EP ''Bar ...
's term
radical translation
Radical translation is a thought experiment in '' Word and Object'', a major philosophical work from American philosopher Willard Van Orman Quine
Willard Van Orman Quine (; known to his friends as "Van"; June 25, 1908 – December 25, 2000) was ...
, which occurs in his work on the
indeterminacy of translation The indeterminacy of translation is a thesis propounded by 20th-century American analytic philosopher W. V. Quine. The classic statement of this thesis can be found in his 1960 book '' Word and Object'', which gathered together and refined much of ...
. Radical translation
is translation of a speaker's language, without prior knowledge, by observing the speaker's use of the language in context.
[Davidson, Donald. Radical Interpretation. Originally published in Dialectica, 27 (1973), 314-28. Reprinted in Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation (2n. ed. 125-39). New York: Clarendon Press.]
Even more so than radical translation did for Quine, radical interpretation plays an important role in Davidson's work, but the exact nature of this role is up for debate. Some see Davidson as using radical interpretation directly in his arguments against conceptual relativism and the possibility of massive error--of most of our beliefs being false.
[Lepore, Ernest and Kirk Ludwig. ''Donald Davidson: Meaning, Truth, Language and Reality''. Oxford. 2005.] But Davidson seems to explicitly reject this reading in "Radical Interpretation Interpreted".
[Davidson, Donald. Radical Interpretation Interpreted. Philosophical Perspectives, 8 (1994), 121-128.]
There is also a more narrow and technical version of radical interpretation used by Davidson:
given the speaker's attitudes of holding particular sentences true in particular circumstances, the speaker's hold-true attitudes, the radical interpreter is to infer a theory of meaning, a truth theory meeting a modified version of
Alfred Tarski
Alfred Tarski (, born Alfred Teitelbaum;School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of St Andrews ''School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of St Andrews''. January 14, 1901 – October 26, 1983) was a Polish-American logician a ...
's
Convention T
A semantic theory of truth is a theory of truth in the philosophy of language which holds that truth is a property of sentences.
Origin
The semantic conception of truth, which is related in different ways to both the correspondence and deflat ...
, for the speaker's
idiolect
Idiolect is an individual's unique use of language, including speech. This unique usage encompasses vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation. This differs from a dialect, a common set of linguistic characteristics shared among a group of people.
Th ...
.
Ernest Lepore
Ernest or Ernie Lepore (born November 20, 1950) is an American philosopher and cognitive scientist and a professor of philosophy at Rutgers University.
Education and career
Lepore earned his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota in 1978, and ...
and
Kirk Ludwig
Kirk Alan Ludwig (born May 11, 1959) is an American philosopher who is Professor of Philosophy and Cognitive Science at Indiana University.
Education and career
Ludwig graduated summa cum laude with a B.S. in physics from the University of C ...
characterize this as inference from sentences of the form:
:Ceteris paribus, S holds true s at t if and only if p.
to corresponding
T-sentences of the form
:s is true (S, t) if and only if q
where s is a sentence in the idiolect of the speaker S, t is a time, and p and q are filled in with sentences in the
metalanguage.
See also
*
Indeterminacy of translation The indeterminacy of translation is a thesis propounded by 20th-century American analytic philosopher W. V. Quine. The classic statement of this thesis can be found in his 1960 book '' Word and Object'', which gathered together and refined much of ...
*
Meaning (linguistics)
Semantics (from grc, σημαντικός ''sēmantikós'', "significant") is the study of reference, meaning, or truth. The term can be used to refer to subfields of several distinct disciplines, including philosophy, linguistics and comput ...
*
Philosophy of language
In analytic philosophy, philosophy of language investigates the nature of language and the relations between language, language users, and the world. Investigations may include inquiry into the nature of meaning, intentionality, reference, ...
*
Radical translation
Radical translation is a thought experiment in '' Word and Object'', a major philosophical work from American philosopher Willard Van Orman Quine
Willard Van Orman Quine (; known to his friends as "Van"; June 25, 1908 – December 25, 2000) was ...
References
External links
*
Philosophy of language
Interpretation (philosophy)
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